Reliance Jio, the number one telecom operator in the country, was adding new active subscribers aggressively for the first few months of this year. However, the data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) shows that in March 2022, Jio’s active subscriber addition rate took a major hit. While the telco finally added new subscribers to its overall userbase, the net adds inactive users slowed down to 0.3 million compared to the 6.3 million in the previous three months. From this month’s performance, it is evident that Jio is done with the SIM consolidation process now. The active subscriber base rose by 5.5 million for the entire industry. This number was led by Bharti Airtel, the second-largest telecom operator in the country, which added 4.6 million new active subscribers.
Vodafone Idea Surprises the Market
In a surprising turn of events, Vodafone Idea has added new users. The telco’s active user base increased by 0.2 million, which is a positive that the company would like to focus on for now. The subscriber churn rate for Vi stood at 3.4% during Q4 FY22, so things aren’t that great either. Even Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) added 0.7 million active users. This was a fantastic quarter in terms of adding active users to the pool. Vi adding active users is something that has happened for the first time since the merger of Vodafone and Idea. In terms of VLR subscriber percentage, Airtel stands at 98.74%, followed by Jio at 93.80%, Vi at 86.70%, and BSNL at 52.60%. The VLR subscriber percentage for each telco improved except for Reliance Jio. However, it is worth noting that Jio has come a long way when it comes to VLR subscriber percentage. Until a few months back, Jio’s score in the VLR subscriber percentage didn’t even stand at 80%. Now, it is the second-best in the industry, not so far behind Airtel. This has helped Jio with improving ARPU.
